Crazy Uncle Bud strikes again with Instant Replay

Look out kiddies; he's at it again. The man who brought us tied All Star Games and cancelled World Series; Crazy Uncle Bud now midwifes—in his usual stone handed way—instant replay to Major League Baseball.

Crazy Uncle Bud, the guy who says he will not continue in his position then signs another multi-year contract. Crazy Uncle Bud, who's septum is pierced for Donald Fehr to insert a nose ring and lead him around.

Now he is impersonating John Houseman's Bartholomew character in the 1975 movie classic Rollerball.

Never before has a respectable professional sports league made a major change to it's rules in the middle of the season. Thanks Crazy Uncle Bud! Major League Baseball has sunken to a another new low.

Bud would have us believe he is going to improve the game by having a "war room" in New York watch all the games, then call out to umpire crew chiefs and have them go look at a monitor. Sure, that will speed up the game and make everybody happy.

This method is copied from the NHL, which has its "war room" in Toronto and reviews every goal scored and near misses.

But Uncle Bud didn't copy off Gary Bettman's paper properly. Toronto calls down, holds up play then TELLS the referee, who is waiting on the ice next to the penalty box, if the call is being overruled. The ref doesn't make the final decision.

Uncle Bud wants the crew chief to leave the field of play, look at a monitor (hope he springs for high def) and make a decision. Can't wait until Joe West or Bob Davidson is pulled aside.

Most of the problems would be solved if playing fields were properly designed in the first place. Variable colored border lines and enough clearance so fans can not interfere with potential home runs would take care of the problem. Of course a few seats would be sacrificed, so we can't have that, can we?

Anaheim has that tall right field wall that is next too impossible to tell what happened with a high fly ball at the top of the wall. By comparison, Wrigley Field installed the catch basket to prevent some of well oiled bleacher bums from sticking their paws on a ball in play.

If Crazy Uncle Bud and Major League Baseball wanted to implement replay in the proper way, they would test the heck out of it for the balance of this year, then have a debut in 2009.

If an umpire misses the call, a call from the "war room" goes directly to the crew chief and TELLS him to reverse the call.

If they wanted to do this in the proper way. Problem is, the proper way isn't Crazy Uncle Bud's way.